“Shorter than that,” Tian assured him. “We’ll have the fourth done this week.”
“Can they work seven days?”
Tian considered that. “Well, maybe,” he said. “For a lot of money.”
“Not a problem.” Since Curtis was spending his future anyway, risking everything on this one gamble, it hardly mattered what commitments he made.
“If we did seven days,” Tian said, “we might be done in fifteen, maybe less.”
“Do it,” Curtis said. “And is the submarine there?”
“Got delivered last week. The box said it was a fuel storage tank, and that’s what it looks like.”
“It will do the job, though,” Curtis said.
Tian shrugged. “If you say so. I don’t know what you want it for.”
“Another part of the operation,” Curtis told him. “You’ll see it on the day.”
“Fine,” Tian said. “I’d hate to ride in it, I’ll tell you that.”
“The submarine?” Curtis shook his head. “No one’s going to ride in that. That isn’t what it’s for.”
“Well, it’s down in the finished part of the basement,” Tian said. “In its box.”
“I’m looking forward to seeing it.”
“You’re coming over?”
“Yes.”
Tian nodded. “I guess you have to. When?”
“Next week.”
“I don’t know,” Tian said, and frowned. “You know we’re not gonna be ready next week.”
“I can’t wait,” Curtis said. “Jackie, I Just can’t wait any longer. I’ll help dig.”
Tian laughed, but Curtis meant it.
He was back with the architects for less than half an hour, after saying goodbye to Tian, who’d fly back to Hong Kong this afternoon, when the second interruption came. This time, they were discussing the cisterns under the tennis courts. Being a coral island, Kanowit had no ground water to speak of, so the resort would depend for its water on collecting rain, and the most useful surface for that purpose would be the tennis courts. They would be sloped, too minimally for any player to notice or be affected by, and rainwater would drain to a downspout into a deep cistern on which the courts would be built.
They were looking at the options for the filtration systems that would be needed, and the most efficient way to move the water to the hotel buildings, when Margaret returned with another note: “Mr. Bennett is in the small conference room.”
“Damn it,” Curtis said, “this is somebody else I absolutely have to see. I’m sorry, I promise this will be the last interruption.”
The architects assured him they had nothing but time, and he went away to see Colin Bennett, who already looked less hangdog and more like his former self. The new clothing helped, and so did the confident smile.
Curtis shut the door behind himself, didn’t bother to shake hands, and said, “Did you find him? So soon?”
“I’ll have him today,” Bennett said. Even his voice was more self-assured. “I thought I had him last night, but something must’ve gone wrong.”
“Wrong? Are they alert? Do they know you’re watching?” Curtis was suddenly aware he might have picked the wrong man for this job, or a man who was no longer right for this job or any other.
But Bennett smiled an easy smile and said, “They don’t have one idea about me. What happened was, they talked on the phone yesterday around six to somebody named Mark.”
“From here?”
“Don’t know yet. Another poofter, apparently. They made an arrangement to meet at the bar at the White Swallow last night at nine-thirty. That’s one of your more discreet places for fellows like that. Not for the hot young lads, you know, more for their uncles. Fellows who carry umbrellas, you know.”
“You went there?”
“It wasn’t exactly as easy as that, Mr. Curtis,” Bennett said. “I don’t look like their customers, you know. So I have this neighbor of mine, in the flats near me, he is more their style, and he’s as hard up as I’ve been lately, or he wouldn’t be living there. So I offered him twenty dollars plus drinking money to do my watching for me. We drove over, got there a few minutes before the time, and when I looked in they were already there. I pointed them out to Fan — he’s the chap — and he went in and made some new friends, and I sat in the car just down the block. Fan’s job was to come out and give me the high sign when this Mark showed up, so I could get his picture, but he never showed.”
“Scared off?” Curtis asked. “By what?”
“Beats me,” Bennett said. “Your two fellas stayed there at the bar almost two hours. Two or three times, I went to the door and looked in. Just to be sure Fan was keeping his mind on the job at hand, and there was Fan, and there was the two, and nobody else. Later on, Fan told me they looked at their watches a lot, and after a while one of them went to make a phone call, and finally they just up and left. I gave Fan money for a taxi, and scooted off back to the hotel myself, so I’d be there before them, which I was. And the first thing they did was call the girl, room to room.”
Smiling, Curtis said, “Did they.”
Bennett laughed and shook his head. “All they had to do was walk down the hall and talk to her face to face, and I wouldn’t know a thing right now. But they phoned her instead.”
“So you heard it.”
“And I heard them say this Mark stood them up, and they didn’t know why, but when they got back to the hotel there was a message from Mark they should meet him today at Empress Place at twelve-thirty.”
Curtis frowned. “Empress Place? That’s the big hawker stand off the Fullerton Road, isn’t it?”
“That’s the one.”
“I’ve never been there,” Curtis said, “but you see it from the bridge. It’s huge, isn’t it? How does anybody find anybody there?”
“That’s their problem, Mr. Curtis,” Bennett said. “I’ve already found my pair. And when they find their friend, why, I’ll find him, too.”
9
Kim sat in the crowded bus, gazing at the teeming city they crept through. She’d told Jerry and Luther this morning about her discovery that her room had been searched, and was pleased when they didn’t waste time doubting her. Jerry said, “Somebody’s followed us, that’s what it is, from Australia. Maybe that’s why Mark didn’t show up last night.”
“We’ll soon know,” Luther said.
They got off the bus at Esplanade Park and crossed to Empress Place, a large open-air pedestrian area overlooking the Singapore River. The sprawling hawker center nearby was open-air, with booths and stalls for the food vendors and many tables, some in dappled shade, many in direct sun. The place was crowded and busy, but they soon found a table.
Luther looked at his watch. “Twelve-thirty exactly,” he said, “I’ll tell you the truth, Kim, I’d like it if he would show up this time.”
“You think he might not?”
“I was sure he’d appear last night,” he said, “and I was wrong.”
They ate, ordering food from three different stalls, and the food was all good. But where was Mark? They’d taken their time, and here they were, finished, and here Mark wasn’t. Their only choice, Jerry said, was to wait, to give him, say, an hour. Though that hadn’t worked the last time.
Kim said, “I’m going to wander,” choosing the word deliberately, and got up before either of the men could tell her not to. “I won’t go far, I promise, and I won’t be away long. And if I see your friend’s here. I’ll come right back.”
There wasn’t much they could do but look dubious, which they did, and which she ignored. She got up and roved among the stalls and the many people eating their lunches. Beyond the hawker center, the city itself from here looked serene, the tall new glass office blocks rising smoothly among the old colonial-era buildings, the traffic sweeping by on the Anderson Bridge, the river endlessly flowing, the white Empress Place Building massive without being intimidating. She walked among the crowds for about five minutes, and was away from the hawker center entirely, over by the Empress Place Building, when a young man, Caucasian, slender, in white shirt and dark slacks, stopped in front of her, and said, “Here.”